Member of Parliament (MP) for Westmoreland Central, the People’s National Party’s (PNP) Dwayne Vaz has accused the former MP, the Jamaica Labour Party’s George Wright, of commandeering a shipment of hurricane relief supplies sent to the constituency on Tuesday.

Vaz painted the picture of what he described as a case of “political victimisation” in the distribution of relief supplies in the aftermath of the devastation left by Hurricane Melissa which slammed into the country at Category 5 strength on October 28.

Vaz was speaking during Tuesday’s sitting of the House of Representatives. He charged that Wright, whom he ousted from the seat in the September 3 General Election, played a central role in diverting relief from persons it was intended for.

Speaking after Prime Minister Dr Andrew Holness had made a nearly two hour-long speech in which Holness gave the preliminary estimate of the damage caused by Melissa, Vaz said: “I know the prime minister stated earlier in his presentation that there is no intent from the government to have any unfair or politicised benefit.

“But there was a situation today (Tuesday) in Westmoreland and even after I spoke to the minister (Pearnel Charles Jr), the minister reached out to me this morning to let me know that a helicopter was coming down with food supplies from the ministry”.

According to Vaz, after the helicopter arrived, “it was total chaos down there”. He explained that, “What I can tell you is that before the helicopter came, the former MP (Wright) and his team was there with trucks and stuff; there are videos of everything (supplies) being loaded in those things [and taken away]…”

Vaz told the prime minister that “the thing that you’re trying to avoid played out today (Tuesday). He was quick to point out that the “minister had no part in it based on my conversations with him because he directly spoke to me and I had a team that went there”.

“But what we realised happened, somebody obviously communicated with the former Member of Parliament. What really happened is that [particular] distribution…has now been labeled as being political because everybody who went there would have seen that form of politics being played out”

Vaz sought clarification on how distribution of relief aid will be carried out in the future and suggested that an adequate presence of the security forces be put in place where supplies are distributed and that the coordination is stepped up.

He said: “If the MP is in charge we will coordinate with the local team at the Ministry, at the NIS (National Insurance Scheme) office. We will speak with the manager for example and work out the way we will distribute because somebody has to lead it and in this case, you have the trusted Member of Parliament to say [I’m] not going to send it only to PNP communities but we are Jamaicans, and we will be distributing it equally across every community that we know needs assistance”.

“We don’t want what happened today (Tuesday) to ever happen again because as I said, it left a bitter taste in the mouths of many of the citizens, persons have been calling me, I’m always on the phone, people texting me asking me ‘what is really happening’”.

The Member of Parliament said he understood the questions being asked “because what would have shown up today, it would seem as if the former MP who’s now the caretaker was the person who was in charge today, on spot, for the distribution of the items, and we don’t want that to be in the thoughts of the people because we know that is not supposed to be the case”.